People showing early signs of high blood pressure restored their readings to healthy levels in just six weeks with the extra hour of sleep each night.

High blood pressure could be combated with more sleep (Picture: Reuters)

High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects one in five adults in Britain and is thought to be responsible for half of all heart attacks and strokes.

The study, carried out by Harvard Medical School in Boston and published in the Journal of Sleep Research, looked at men and women who regularly slept for only seven hours or less a night and were beginning to have borderline high blood pressure readings.

‘These preliminary findings have to be interpreted with caution,’ the study’s authors write.

‘But future investigations should look at whether increasing sleep duration serves as an effective strategy in the treatment of hypertension.’